Monday, October 13, 2008
Nike football is cool, but do you care?
Granted, I think this and the Michael Mann spot are the two best dramatic slash poignant football spots I’ve seen in a year, but does it connect with the brand? Does it make you care about Nike football? Nike is lifestyle now, 100%. For runners and posers who like a swoosh on what they wear. Does a football spot ring true for their base, and would this David Fincher spot called Fate not be a piece better suited for NFL Network, or even the NFL itself?
(Shhh. It’s okay. You know the answer, you don’t have to say a word.)
Tags: Nike football
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3 comments:
I hear what you are saying but in looking at what they are actually doing on nikefootball.com (which is were the spot points you to) this tool they built really is trying to make kids play better football. It might not make you care about nike football but at least they are sticking with the idea that they want to make you better.
Actually, it does make sense. Nike's brand is Dreamer and Wannabe. "I wanna be like (insert your hero here). And that's great if your hero is Mike Jordan, or Tiger Woods. But do you want to be like Mike Vick? How many people want to be Terrell Owens? Or Lance Armstong, who all but the most simple-minded jock sniffers now associate with Better Living Through Chemistry. How many cajillions of dollars does Nike pay Michelle Wie to not win anything?
Tying your brand to a particular individual is a crap shoot. Tying it to the love of the game isn't. Mark McGuire may have fallen from grace, but baseball is still doing okay.
@philly @anon. - Agree. This spot said ‘dreams’ more than anything to me and not Nike per se, something any brand might own. Kid playing, hoping to maybe make it to the NFL. That theme still works because it’s not dependent on any one player. (Although the Nike high school stuff with Urlacher & Co. was full of stars, it was still cool.)
As for the other dudes, nobody wants to be like Vick, but stuff like that’s after the fact. Nobody knew that stuff about him until after all the hype went away. Nike also has a habit of hyping athletes like Bode Miller even if they don’t pan out.
For dudes like that, it’s not about winning the gold, it’s being the brand being associated with someone who, when they’re on their game, are great, but when they fail, they fail big.
Look at Kobe’s confessional spots where they tried to say people hate Kobe because of his game. Sorry, but it was his off the court shit more than a few people had a problem with.
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